The church-going bell.

The church-going bell.

Hear the sledges with the bells,
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
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Hear the sledges with the bells,
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night,
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the Heavens seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight:
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells--
From the jingling and the tingling of the bells.

That all-softening, overpowering knell,
The tocsin of the soul--the dinner bell.

That all-softening, overpowering knell,
The tocsin of the soul--the dinner bell.

It cometh into court and pleads the cause
Of creatures dumb and unknown to the laws;
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It cometh into court and pleads the cause
Of creatures dumb and unknown to the laws;
And this shall make, in every Christian clime,
The bell of Atri famous for all time.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,

Hark, how chimes the passing bell!
There's no music to a knell;
All the other sounds we read more

Hark, how chimes the passing bell!
There's no music to a knell;
All the other sounds we hear,
Flatter, and but cheat our ear.
This doth put us still in mind
That our flesh must be resigned,
And, a general silence made,
The world be muffled in a shade.
[Orpheus' lute, as poets tell,
Was but moral of this bell,
And the captive soul was she,
Which they called Eurydice,
Rescued by our holy groan,
A loud echo to this tone.]

With deep affection
And recollection
I often think of
Those Shandon bells,
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With deep affection
And recollection
I often think of
Those Shandon bells,
Whose sounds so wild would,
In the days of childhood,
Fling round my cradle
Their magic spells.

These bells have been anointed,
And baptized with holy water!

These bells have been anointed,
And baptized with holy water!

The cheerful Sabbath bells, wherever heard,
Strike pleasant on the sense, most like the voice
Of one, read more

The cheerful Sabbath bells, wherever heard,
Strike pleasant on the sense, most like the voice
Of one, who from the far-off hills proclaims
Tidings of good to Zion.

Your voices break and falter in the darkness,--
Break, falter, and are still.

Your voices break and falter in the darkness,--
Break, falter, and are still.